Friday, November 28, 2008

under the Linuxville news desk

The tangle of wires, wisps of "dust-bunnies" and digital bits that somehow leaked out, all strewn about, their muffled scurrying amid key clicks and computer's hum, I brush them with my foot, oh that's one of the cats.......

I "googled" myself, Arno's Art, just to see who's out there. There is an Arno Arts that is not Arno's Art. They, or he, or she are a multimedia artist in Germany, I think. They seem pretty well established and professional and in no way are related to yours truly, but it is interesting. Just try to be original, really original, in this Internet age. I use Arno because that's how my mom says it and my artist persona "RNO", is taken from the middle of my name. So I am within my self, ha ha.
Arno's Art sounds better than Arno's Science now doesn't it? In my realm you use science to find out all about it, then to apply it is an art. Thus art is the application of science. Tell all your teachers I said that.

Under the Linuxville desk is not so new technology because I like most of you can not keep up with the latest toys and have no practical need to do so. The problem comes when your beloved and depended on software is no longer supported or the new hardware requires new software. I've made the jump from Win95, to Win98 to XP to, that's enough........ With each ineration of Win there was a new set of applications to fit. And the stuff that was not really old enough to be trashed was useless, unsupported, made obsolecent.

In the Linux realm, my hardware is having a longer life cycle, in fact older hardware is quite useful. That older PC could become a file server, network attached storage (NAS), or a web server, or an multimedia machine for my den, on my network and not missed at all. Yeah, you could do it with MS Win, but this is Linuxville remember!? MS software owership is a lease agreement at best, you have the right to use it according to their wishes. Linux is free from legal entanglements and brusing your conscience, it really is yours to do as you wish. Free and up-to-date software on older hardware is tough to pass up. My wife worries about outbreaks of "it's alive, it's alive" coming from the computer room.

Here's a scenerio: You have your laptop with all you personal data on it (huge hard drive), it gets "borrowed" by a stranger and all your info is gone. Or, you keep your most precious data on your network attached storage (NAS), could be a portable USB drive, which you leave at home. Protect your data, there are digital dumpster divers in the world.

And speaking of digital art........
To all you folk who have interest in digital art, how do you view it? When you think of digital art, what do you think? My first impression was that of commercial art. My sister worked in advertizing, my cousins for a greeting card company. Then there is game art, comics, cartoons and special effects for movies. There are lots of fantasy artist and desktop icon and wallpaper artist. And I am still amoured by industrial designers who design all the stuff we live with, especially home furnishings. With the advent of big screen digital TV's you will see more "screensaver" add-ons that will allow you to display family photos or your digital art collection when you are not watching commercial television (plug in your jump drive). Much of the digital art today is never intended to be printed out, framed and hung, but it could be...........

There is much to be said about traditional art media and folks who have learned the skills to use them. They will not go away, but works of art with those media will probably become more rare, thus more valuable. But no matter the media, it is the artist who makes the art. What is interesting is when artist cross over and blend and bend and stretch and blur the lines between different media. Yeah, it would be very cool if one of my works wound up behind your couch, over your headboard, in your dining room. I am an admitted niche artist, looking for a responding audience, yet not trying to make a career out of it. And it all happens here in Linuxville..........

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